The issue that came up in the coaching session was: when to stop meeting and write some code? My client, a senior software engineer, knew in his bones that more meetings wouldn’t move the project forward, but a week of him coding a prototype would. But how to communicate that without appearing to just arrogantly blow off the team?

“Code Wins Arguments” has been around for a while. This is from the Facebook S1 filing:

“Instead of debating for days whether a new idea is possible or what the best way to build something is, hackers would rather just prototype something and see what works”.

Classic! “Hackers would rather…”. Of course they would! No more stupid meetings, we’re just going to build it and you guys can sort it out later! Cool! The implied context is an argument and the outcome is a win – which means a defeat for somebody. Read More